My first form

JUST EIGHT SHORT STEPS to publishing your first form

To scroll through the illustrations and abbreviated instructions, click on an image below to zoom and mouse over the top right to click 'Next'

Create A simple quiz form

Step 1 – creating a new form

You have three choices for creating forms:

Create a form from scratch (which is what we are going to do now ...)
Use or modify one of the Forms on the Fly samples
'Save As' and modify a form you have previously created

Click on Forms and then the Create button which will bring up the New Form box. Here you decide on your form's properties.

Choose a title for your form (this will be seen by your visitors when you publish the form)
Give it a description (this is for your own use so, once you've created a lot of forms, you can remember what they were all for!)
For now, just overwrite 'Section 1' with the name you used to give your form a title (this form will only have one section, its name will be seen by respondents, and we're not going to worry about the uses of multiple sections yet)
You can leave the 'Author' field blank, but if there's more than one of you using this tool, and you want to claim authorship of your own forms, put your name in here

Now click Create Form ...

Step 2 – editing your form

... in order to access the Form Editor. All we're going to concern ourselves with for this example are the Add Questions buttons.

Step 3 – add a question

Click on the Options button to select a type of multiple choice question (in this case we'll go for radio buttons as we only want one answer selected)
Type your question in the box
For this example, leave the 'Tips' area blank
Use the Quick Add Options area to input your choices (just hit Return between each choice)
Click Process Options

Step 4 – add interactive advice

Now for the fun bit – where you provide comment or advice to your respondent dependent on the choice they make.

Click on the Advice tab
Fill in a comment for each of the multiple choices
Click Update Advice and (as we don't want to add any scoring this time)
Click Add Question

Step 5 – proofing and saving

You'll now see your question in the editor. If you want to amend it, just click on the edit icon to the right.

For this one question form, all we now need to do is to set up the report that will be viewed when the form is submitted. (Of course, most of your forms will have more than one question.)

At this point we suggest you Save your form (always a good idea to do this regularly so you don't risk losing a lot of work if your connection should fail, or you're interrupted). You'll remain in the editor until you decide to Close it.

Now, click the Output button - this is where you will set up the report to be viewed by your site visitor when they submit the form.

Step 6 – define the report to be output

When you open the Output dialog box, you will be offered a number of choices. For this form we are going to add a short introduction and just include the 'Advice' we set up (in step 4).

Tick the box next to Include Introduction and type your intro.

We don't want to show the question and answers given, so untick those options. (Leave 'Incude this Section' ticked or your report won't include anything at all!)

Now click Update which will take you back to the Form Editor. Click Save and then Close.

Step 7 - testing your form

Your saved form will be accessible (for testing, editing, publishing etc) when you click the Library button.

There are various ways to test your form:

publish it on a private page on your website or blog (see 'Publishing' below)
create a link to your form on a page hosted by us (see 'Publishing' below)
'assign' it to yourself so you can test in within your account (see Assigning)

PUBLISH A FORM

Step 8 - publishing your form

Find your form in your Library of forms (probably the only one listed so far).

Click Publish
Select whether to add more contact fields at the beginning of your form, or just have First Name, Last Name and Email Address. (Note that the respondent's data provided in these contact fields will, on submission of a form, populate the contacts database in your account. For more, see Managing Contacts)
Leave 'Display Report in Browser' selected. (Selecting 'No Action' would generate a form which does not display anything on submission)
For now, select the top option: 'A link to your form hosted by Forms on the Fly' and click Get Code
Copy the code generated for you ready to email out (try it first by pasting the code into your browser's address bar)
NB you can also try out the other options including publishing on your website or blog and sharing on Facebook or Twitter

VIEWING REPORTS

Ok, now you've published your form, people have been using it on your website, and you'd like to see what they've said or done. Let's sort out a little Forms on the Fly terminology:

Form Reports

Because, unlike a survey tool, the important element in Forms on the Fly is the ability to deliver interactive one-to-one feedback, the term 'Report' is used to describe that feedback – i.e. the report viewed by your respondent when they submit your form.

In the simple form example above, that will just be a short introduction and the comment auto-generated by the answer they gave to our single question. The report you build for your forms may be a simple 'thank you' or include a great deal more content, scores and graphs. By going to Forms > Reports you can, if you wish, view the report as it was seen by each individual respondent.

Forms In Use

In this area you will see a list of all the forms you've individually assigned to a contact AND those you Unlock in the Form Reports area. More on assigning forms to a contact to use in your account or to email

If you want to view or edit the data input to an individual form, you access it from here.

You can only see which forms have been submitted from your web page by viewing them in the Forms Reports area. If you wish to view the data input to a form completed on the web (rather than the report it generated), you need to Unlock it which will make it accessible to you in Forms In Use.

Contacts Reports

To view all your contacts – including those who have added themselves by filling in their details when they submitted one of your web forms – click on the Contacts tab. You can also export all your contacts from here to use for email marketing or other purposes.